The Great Move to California

What a ride this one was! First we got boxes (thank you work!), then we packed boxes, we loaded them, we moved them, we unloaded them. We still haven't unpacked them...I am surprised by how much you don't need to subsist (though finding a hairdryer and the rice would be a nice perk).

Steve got under the mattress to help move it. My dad is shown in the back. It took all four boys to get that behemoth up the stairs.

The boys helped pack stuff in (we girls were cleaning). I didn't get a picture of the full truck, but we ended up filling most of it. My dad was packer extraodinaire! He made everything fit in just right.

My father-in-law brought out the last part of the bed.

I say a parting farewell to Zzyzx (ah, Zzyzx). We all met up in St. George and on Saturday we had three legs to get to Fresno. I did leg one with my mohter-in-law in the Aveo, leg two they let me drive their Pilot with my sister-in-law and the leg three Steve and I were in the moving van.

How we are living now - out of boxes! After about a week we managed to get a card table. Eating standing up is a drag. We'll move completely after May 31st.

Graduation x2

Our family has two new BYU graduates! One is Steve and the other is my sister. Both immediate families came out in their entirety (even Matt!) and we had a fun time. The added bonus was that both families helped us move (another post on that coming soon).

Congratulations to both graduates! You both worked hard and deserve your degrees ten times over!

Steve and I - we made it!

The family! (my parents couldn't make the picture)

Both graduates

Matt and Steve

Things I Never Did Before I Met Steve

The list includes but is not exclusive to the following.

--Eat cake mix dry
--Shoot a crossbow
--Speak baby talk to fish
--Hike the "Y" at 5am
--Consider the cost of car maintenance when planning a road trip
--Dye Easter Eggs
--Enjoy eating bacon
--Make cakes in 9x13 pans
--Held a full time job for almost 3 years
--Want children
--Cut hair on a boy
--Spin a pot lid to see if it is boiling (hot = expanding air pressure)

Capitol Reef and St. George

This last weekend I took a floating holiday and Steve and I went on a mini-vacation. We went camping at Capitol Reef National Park on Friday through Saturday. Saturday we drove to St. George and stayed with our friends through Sunday afternoon. This vacation only had 12 hours of driving (an improvement over the last vacation!).

Capitol Reef was beautiful! It was warm, spacious, quiet and had a lot of things to see. There were historical buildings and hikes and activities for kids etc. Capitol Reef used to be a small group of families who lived way back in the mountains of Utah and grew fruit trees to make a living. The fruit orchards are still maintained and in the summer campers can pick the ripe fruit in season. I wish we could go back when the fruit is in season, but we will have moved to California by then.

Our campsite. There were a lot of deer droppings. The mountains were so beautiful!

Me in the orchards (apricot I believe) as the sun was rising.

At the top of a 3 mile hike (labeled "moderate"-ha! I would not have wanted to see severe!), I saw this view of camp. One can see the orchards, which are right near the campgrounds. The mountains were blue!

When we went to St. George, our friends were so kind to give us showers, food and fun. We are definately going to have to make a trip to St. George to see them again! I was so proud of Steve who played so well with their little boy. (The husband is taking the picture. And yes, that is the St. George temple.)

Mesa Temple

As mentioned in the buffalo post, we went to Arizona the last weekend in February. We went for many reasons, but one of them was to witness the sealing of my newest eternal family member. It was a beautiful ceremony and I had a fantastic time visiting and getting to know a side of the family I knew about but had not yet had the chance to meet.

Steve and I in front of the Mesa Temple.

Steve and I in a cactus garden on the Mesa Temple grounds.

Buffalo

One of the first things I remember about Steve occured when we first hiked the "Y" together. During the climb he told me about his dreams of building a castle (complete with moat, drawbridge and stone gargolyes) and having a lot of land. With the land he would like to raise beefalo (hybrid buffalo and cow). He still has this dream.

On our way back from Arizona last weekend, we past and took pictures of buffalo, which aren't beefalo, but could be the next best thing!

I love that he still has big dreams.

Negotiations

Ok, this is Steve posing again. This must only be my 3rd or 4th, but there's something way to cool to not post. This is my first really awesome exposure to negotiating super lower prices.

We are leaving Provo (as you know) after I graduate in April. We've been looking at rental trucks and making reservations.

First, I searched the internet and found that Uhaul was $470, Budget was $455, and Penske was about $650. So I made the reservation with Budget.

Then Penske called me the next morning and pointed out that I didn't complete the reservation with them. I explained that it was a price issue. Then the lady said she could "maybe" find a hidden discount somewhere. Yea right, i'm acutely aware that businesses like to have stepped price systems to charge different rates to customers depending on how much they're willing to pay. Similar to department stores' progressive sales. First full price, then they fall weekly until they're a magical 70% off! People pay approx. the max they are willing to pay.

So I called Budget and explained the situation. I said, "Hey, I'd like to stick with you guys, but I'll switch if I can save money." So the Budget folks dug around a little more and got the price from $455 down to $431.

The next morning Penske called again and said that they had a better rate--$421. Sure, it's only a ten dollar difference, by why stop the ball rolling now? I used that offer to call up Budget and see what they could do. As they were getting back to me, I spoke with Penske again who let me know they could lower the price to $375.

That's actually cheaper than it would cost to rent a modest trailer and pull it across to California. Instead, we get a truck with double the space, and for less moolah. My next experiment with competitive supplier bidding will be when we make our trip. We need to stop in a small town of Ely, Nevada, and get a hotel room there. I imagine that all hotels will have vacancies that they can't fill, so we'll see who's willing to take the least to fill some vacancies!

--Steve